


first snow

by rattyjol



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Snow, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4625529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rattyjol/pseuds/rattyjol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riley can always feel the first snow of the season coming. It’s folded into her bones—a part of Iceland and a part of her, right alongside the language and the grief and her father's name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	first snow

**Author's Note:**

> prompted by streussal at comment_fic LJ: [Sense8, Capheus +/ any other sensate, snow](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/645607.html?thread=87509479#t87509479)

Riley can always feel the first snow of the season coming. It’s folded into her bones—a part of Iceland and a part of her, right alongside the language and the grief and her father's name. She hadn't known, that first winter in England, if she would feel it the same, if she would feel it at all, but she woke up one morning in late October with the bone-deep certainty of flakes drifting outside her window, even before she pulled her head out from under the duvet.

Now, home again, she stands under Reykjavik's first snow and something about it hums, resonates deep within her, a part of her like the cluster is a part of her. It's just beginning to stick on the driveway and the road, but the lawns and fields and houses are a flat white, as far as she can see, and little flakes settle on her hair and shoulders and hands. She breathes in home.

"This is snow?"

Capheus has come, stretching halfway across the world for a peek—hardly dressed for the weather, but it doesn't seem to bother him. He grins up at the sky, delighted, and then tries to catch the flakes on his tongue. His joy is infectious, sweeps her up too—she hasn't felt this awe for the snow since she was a child. Somewhere off out there, Kala smiles over her dinner, and Lito rolls over and tucks his blankets more snugly under his chin, and Nomi inhales half a mug of scalding coffee in one go.

"So this is why I've been so cold this morning." Nomi looks around the untouched landscape with interest tempered by sleep, blinking owlishly through the steam billowing from her mug. "Prettier than I remember."

"You don't get snow in San Francisco?"

"No, never." She smiles a little in memory. "I went to New York in March, once, but it was all ice and mud by then. Not much to look at."

"Look!" Capheus wanders back to show them the flakes he's caught on his fingers. With the body heat to melt them thousands of miles away, the tiny crystals stay frozen and perfect as they’re admired. "They say no two are alike—is it true?"

Riley shrugs. "I've never checked, myself."

Nomi hands off her coffee mug—Riley can feel the ghost of its heat through her gloves, like an echo—and tries to scrape enough snow together to make a snowball.

"It won't hold," Riley says, smiling, as Nomi squeezes the snow in long, bare fingers. "It's too soft." And sure enough, the snowball falls apart in Nomi's hands. She considers the remains thoughtfully a moment before dumping it unceremoniously down the collar of Capheus's shirt.

Capheus yelps and reels away. There was a time, not that long ago, that anything half so jarring would have broken the link and sent Capheus and Nomi home. But the cluster is stronger now, and instead, Capheus picks up another handful of snow and throws it at the both of them. Heavier than he thought, it falls a little short of its mark, but it's enough to spark a full-on snowmush fight of the kind Riley hasn't had since secondary school.

"It's hardly fair," Riley laughs when it dies down, and they all huddle together flushed and giggling. "You'll both get to go home dry and warm. I've got snow in my sweater." She shakes it out as proof.

"Next time we get snow, I'll invite you over to throw some at me," Nomi says, smiling, and is gone. Riley turns to Capheus, who's drinking in the scenery one last time.

"Will the snow still be here tomorrow?"

"And the next day, and the next, I expect. I'll be sick of it by next week. It'll be nice to have someone around to appreciate it." She cocks her head in his direction, and he grins again, wide and awed.

"Next week, then," he promises, and she feels the baking Nairobi heat on her skin for half an instant as he goes.

Riley stays a moment longer before she turns and trudges back towards the house, where a box of her favorite hot chocolate is sitting on the high shelf, and her father is humming over his newspaper, and outside the snow falls.


End file.
